Things are going slow

on the blue sweater. This is partly because the finish work in this thing is a pain in the ass. I have to knit the edging then sew it on. Seriously, why didn't I just knit it begin with, pick up and shortrow? I'll never know.
That isn't the main problem, though. The big problem here is that I've gotten sucked into reading the Twilight series and I Can't. Put. It. Down.
I know. I've crossed over to the dark side. But I just can't stop! It's like eating candy without getting fat!

Doesn't Look Like Much Now

but it's my next sweater. This is the other sweater I've been meaning to get done. It looks kind of purple here but is really very blue. I was originally going to make myself an Eris sweater but after I made my sister's sweater, I decided that once through that pattern was enough. This is another one from Big Girl Knits called Lift and Seperate. It is my first time making myself a wrap sweater. I'll be interested to see how I like it.

In other news, I dyed the Sock Club March yarn yesterday and had a lot of fun doing it. I've gotten more and more into painting my yarns lately. I feel like it gives me a lot more control of where the dye goes and the yarn isn't so wet afterwards. The inspiration was yellow tulips and blue sky.

I used two shades of yellow and two shades of green as well as the blue of the sky and the dark brown at the base of the tulip.It was a lot of fun and I'm very pleased with the results. I'm looking forward to knitting some of it up!

That's Better

Okay, I got it to work again.

So, I get both sides and the sleeves done and run out of yarn. I'd known at an intellectual level that garter stitch eats yarn but now I can say from experience, Holy Crap, garter stitch eats yarn!

That's okay. I own a yarn shop. I'll order more. Until I get the order and my yarn's not there. Next to it on the invoice is the word DISCONTINUED! Discontinued?! Are you kidding me? Cascade never discontinues anything and now they've discontinued the one yarn that I need two more skeins of the finish my sweater?!!

Okay, okay, time for plan B. Fortunately, I had some of the Silk Garden left over so I did the collar with that. I also had set aside a skein of another color that was really, really close. I decided to just let it be close and do the edging with that. I crocheted the edging too since the applied I-cord it called for sounded like one skein wouldn't make it. Two rows of single crochet later, I put the zipper in and voila!

BTW, they used buttons but I have been putting zippers in everything lately and loving it. No gaposis (you know when the space between your buttons gaps? I hate that)I'm very pleased with the result!

Thanks, Sarah, for taking the pictures!

Knitting Things That Are Not Socks

I know, alert the media!

Every once in a while, I need some new sweaters. I've actually needed at least a couple of new sweaters for a while. I tend to wear the daylights out of my sweaters. I'm not sure why. I also seem to have a small problem with dribbling food down my front when I eat. I mean, I try to be neat and, being all grown up, you'd think I'd be better at it. Apparently not. I have now officially sworn off making myself light colored, solid shaded sweaters because I can't have all that work ruined in a minute. Sad.

So, I had this sweater that I'd started last year. It is Sandy from Big Girl Knits and I just loved it. Well, I dug it out and started knitting it again since I have finally figured out that if you actually knit on somthing, it eventually gets done. I know, took me a while and I practice Zen.

Anyway, it was really fun knitting someone else's pattern and also realizing that I can knit myself something other than a boxy pullover from the sweater pattern in my head. This pattern is great fun! You start out with four panels made with Noro. I used Silk Garden. You sew two of them together for the back and leave the other two seperate for the front.

You then edge them with the main color for which I used Cascade Pastaza, color 18, now discontinued (more on that later).

After the edging is done, you attach the back and one of the fronts into a big circle

and shortrow your way up the side.The remaining hole then turns into the sleeve. Genius!

And that's going have to be all for now because my computer has decided that I can't edit the rest of my pictures. I'll restart my computer and try again.

Wanda is Confused

She knows something's up. What she'll figure out shortly is that she is spending the weekend with Auntie Kimberly and Uncle Bob.
Meanwhile, I'll be taking Big Nephew up to Maine for the weekend to meet all of his second cousins. A couple of those cousins are under 5 and will be getting bunny hats from me (hey, any excuse to make a bunny hat is a good one!). Doria and Miren are kindly modelling them for you here. How cute are they?!!
Oh, and here are the backs of the hats. Bunny butts!
I am definitely going to have to make more of these!

About time I posted

Thanks to a poke from Kneyda on Ravelry, I'm finally posting to the blog.As promised, here are the new spring yarns. From left to right, we have Katia Bombay which is a sport weight, mercerized, self-stiping cotton. I got it to replace the discontinued Katia Jamaica which turned into Big Niece's Christmas dress. The next one is Bamboo Silk from Ella Rae. It is really soft and, according to Annie, has a great hand. (I'm making that Annie knit all the samples.) The last one is Sugar Rush. It is made with sugar cane! How fun is that?! It is very slippery and drapy but super shiny.
I'm really happy with these yarns. I already need to order more of the Bombay. The colors are gorgeous and I've set some aside to make a baby dress for a friend. Can't wait to try it!